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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Think you pay too much for utilities already? Get ready to pay more, and TVA is guaranteeing you will pay more for their Kingston mess:

The tab for a toxin-laden ash flood at a coal-fired power plant in Tennessee could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and ratepayers for the nation's largest public utility will probably be stuck with the bill.

The total cost of cleaning up last month's accident isn't yet clear, but the bill will be staggering. Extra workers, overtime, heavy machinery, housing and supplies for families chased from their homes and lawsuits are among the costs that are piling up.

And with few other places for the Tennessee Valley Authority to turn to cover the costs, the utility's 9 million customers in Tennessee and six surrounding states will bear the brunt in higher electricity rate hikes in the future, TVA Chairman Bill Sansom told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Don't even think about demanding anything else. They have a CEO to pay.

And just remember this next June when Metro budget discussions roll around and we start hearing about the necessity to raise revenues to pay for other utilities; like Metro Water's stormwater run-off infrastructure. Once TVA is through forcing us to pay for their mistakes (Nashville "imports" electricity from TVA), where are we going to locate and how will we muster the will to take care of our other aging utilities? TVA's lack of diligence is going to trickle down and probably crush lots of worthwhile and pressing initiatives that we might have been willing to brook. Thanks again, TVA, for nothing.

1 comment:

Heaven forbid Tom Kilgore should give back his $1 million "incentive" bonus either ... I'm not sure how he "earned" that except by cutting corners and putting the citizens of Tennessee at risk so he could boost TVA's on-paper profits.

I for one want to demand he give that back. Unless part of his job description is to create the largest environmental disaster since the ExxonValdez spill.